Hate to be the bearer of bad (horrid in this case) news, but I just saw this on zdnet.com, and it looks pretty clear that the Dreamcast is quite, quite dead…
Of course, the technology and the games will probably live on, especially considering True Red’s earlier post, but this is prolly the last we’ll see of the console.
Japan’s Sega Corp. pulled the plug on its Dreamcast game machine on Wednesday, announcing it would suffer a record loss by ending production of the loss-making console in March in a dramatic refocusing on video game software.
The world’s third-biggest maker of game hardware and software said the shutting down of Dreamcast will generate $689 million (80 billion yen) in extraordinary losses, leading to a consolidated net loss of $502 (58.3 billion yen) in 2000/01 ending March 31.
That exceeded analysts’ forecasts for a $430 million (50 billion yen) special loss to abandon Dreamcast, the world’s first Internet-compatible video game machine when it was launched in 1999 that grew famous for characters like “Sonic the Hedgehog.”
Sega’s dream of the world’s first 128-bit console wired up for online gaming taking the market by storm quickly faded into a nightmare as the machine floundered against smoother, faster rival machines from Sony and Nintendo.
“We will rapidly shift our focus to the content business,” Sega said in a statement on Wednesday.
Source: ZDnet